When Will They Figure It Out? By Butler Shaff er
(2011-02-08 at 19:58:20 )

When Will They Figure It Out? By Butler Shaff er

The response of political f igures and members of the mainstream media
to the killing and wounding of a number of people in Tucson, was not
surprising. Had the victims been "ordinary" people alone, the event
would have been quickly noted as but another symptom of a conf lict-
ridden society. There would have been no daily hospital press
conferences to update their conditions. But this shooting resulted in
the killing of a f ederal judge, and the grave wounding of a member
of congress: now we are talking "Serious" Off enses!

Shortly after the shootings occurred, local and national politicians
issued press releases that focused on government off icials being the
targets of such violence. To the politically-minded, the "ordinaries"
(or "mundanes") who were killed or wounded were what they have come to
regard as "collateral damage."

In coming days, the politically-correct chatter will consist of an
endless string of non sequiturs: private gun ownership, Tea Party
politics, angry rhetoric, the Internet, people who "hate" the government,
television violence, et al. Even Sarah Palin has come in for criticism!
Like the magician who uses brightly-colored cloths and quick movements
in his act, such explanations are designed to distract our attention. As
the Wizard of Oz angrily reacted to Totos knocking over the screen that
revealed his systematic bamboozlement, "pay no attention to that man
behind the screen."

The reality to which increasing numbers of people are becoming aware,
is that politics is a violent and corrupt racket that functions on
generating f ears among those to be ruled. Politicians and other
government off icials are attracted to political careers not because
they want to serve others, but because they have their own visions of
what would be "good" for such others, and desire the power to enforce by
violence - which is the essence of every government - their expectations.
Such people easily f ind - usually within business organizations and
labor unions - people who, unable to prosper in a free market grounded
in voluntary transactions, are eager to resort to state violence.
"Invisible Hands" must be replaced by the "Iron Fist."

Every piece of legislation enacted by congress, every order issued by a
court, every action undertaken by government off icials - whether at a
state, local, or national level - has behind it the power to enforce
such edicts or acts by the most violent methods to which such off icials
deem it necessary to resort. From the cop on the corner, to SWAT teams,
to men and women who torture others, to assassins, to those who conduct
capital punishment, to military personnel armed with the deadliest of
weapons, the state - supported by the special interests who have no
qualms about employing such methods to further their interests - is
nothing if not the Institutionalization Of Violence.

Those who choose to repress an awareness of the vicious, violent, and
dehumanized nature of the state will doubtless succumb to the self-
serving claims of politicians who f ashion themselves noble "public
servants" who are victimized by the very violence they have made the
central theme for their careers. Political systems - from the local Weed
Control Commission to the Pentagon - are def ined by their monopoly on
the use of violence. Those who use lawful coercion to enforce their
wills on others, should be the last heard to lament the "environment of
violence" afoot in the land. They have been active participants in the
continuing expansion of such life-destroying powers; they insist upon
others respecting such authority for their own sense of identity and
well-being.

Whenever I hear politicians bemoan such violence, I am reminded of a
scene from one of the Godfather f ilms. As Michael Corleone is in church
participating in his nephews christening, the priest asks him if he
rejects violence, to which Corleone answers "yes," even as his henchmen
are going about murdering his adversaries. How politicians can, on any
moral or intellectually honest grounds, condemn the violence that they
daily legislate and fund, is beyond me. When John McCain angrily weighed
in on the Tuscon shootings, I was reminded of his 2008 presidential
campaign song-and-dance that went "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran."

Those who, like this gunman, resort to violence in response to whatever
grievances they hold, have reduced themselves to self-destructive acts
of utter desperation. I have always rejected the use of violence -
whether against the state or other individuals - not so much because of
what it would do to them, but what it would do to me. I oppose political
systems because I believe that a free, productive, and peaceful society
can arise only through the voluntary acts of cooperative individuals;
that efforts to impose order by violent means will always work to the
destruction of society, as is now occurring. Were I to sanction violence
as a solution to the problems our thinking has created, would be to
admit that I have been wrong in my assumptions. As I have told a few
people who work within political systems, "if I thought that violence
could be used to accomplish my ends, I would join you guys!"

The men and women who not only prof it from the political racket, but
whose identities are so entwined with the state as to be unable to
imagine a lif e without an attachment to coercive power, are unlikely to
make any intelligent changes in their lives. A few might begin to f igure
out that the "public" - for whom they like to pretend they serve - has a
growing resentment of them. For the politically minded, the expression of
such anger is seen not as a warning that the state has reached too far,
but as another "problem" to be Dealt With By A Further Extension Of
State Power.

A few members of the class of "ordinaries" may become so frustrated by
all of this that they will see violent reaction as their only option.
But for the rest of us - weary of the burdens of obedience, the costs of
our being looted, and the deadly violence to which our lives are
increasingly exposed - peaceful, non-destructive alternatives must be
found. We would be better served not by physically attacking the state
or its sociopathic operatives, but in walking away from them. Our
survival as free men and women requires a Secession of Our Minds
From The Chains Of Violence.

January 11, 2011

Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He
is the author of the newly-released In Restraint of Trade: The Business
Campaign Against Competition, 1918–1938 and of Calculated Chaos:
Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival. His latest book is
Boundaries of Order.

Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.